The New York Times has been covering the dispute between David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital and an anonymous blogger who published Greenlight’s confidential investment strategy. I wrote about the case here. The New York Times published an article about the case that includes a quote from my blog post:
“Laws prohibiting trade-secret misappropriation by definition restrict speech,” Eric W. Ostroff, a commercial litigation and trade secret lawyer with Meland Russin & Budwick, wrote on his blog. “Allowing someone to hide behind an online pseudonym could render these laws ineffective.”
As the article notes, this is a very interesting case that highlights the competing interests between the First Amendment and trade-secret misappropriation laws. In a world where everyone has access to social media and blogging resources that allow for the free, easy, and widespread dissemination of information, trade-secret-misappropriation laws need to restrict people from anonymously disclosing trade secrets.